


something you can never give back

by ursus_mari



Series: Serious Business TM [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Angst, Gen, merlin is a traumatized bean and camelot is NOT a nice place for a sorcerer, uh descriptions of people burning if that's a trigger
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:14:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26403274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ursus_mari/pseuds/ursus_mari
Summary: Some nights, Merlin dreams of fire.
Series: Serious Business TM [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1919899
Comments: 4
Kudos: 25





	something you can never give back

**Author's Note:**

> This is very short, but I was decently pleased with it.
> 
> I was feeling very badly about Merlin's circumstances, and behold! 600 words of pretty much pure angst and bitterness! That said, I don't believe this is genuinely how Merlin feels in canon, but it felt important to examine. Or it wasn't _all_ he felt in canon, at least.
> 
> Title is from Me by The 1975

Some nights, Merlin dreams of fire. Smoke filling his lungs, flames burning his flesh away, pain, pain, pain. Through his watery, clouded eyes, he sees Arthur watching him burn, grim and full of hate. That’s the worst part, he thinks. Not the screaming in his lungs, not the horrible, searing pain, not the smell of his own burning flesh, but the promise of the person he’s had his life dedicated to, who he loves despite all his flaws for the hope he brings, who he risks his life to protect, being the one who condemns him.

When he wakes, he wakes with a scream trapped in his throat and tears in his eyes, shaking and terrified. He buries his face in his hands and takes deep, shuddering breaths, trying not to feel like his chest is caving in with each exhale. Puts his hands in his lap, clenches them into fists, watches them shake. All he wants after these nights is a break, a chance to breathe and not feel hunted and trapped and to be terrified. Not act the fool for just a moment, not paste on a smile and pretend he isn’t scared for his life. But instead he has to go wake the man who might see him burn.

So he pastes on a smile, wide and fake, and drags Arthur out of bed with false cheer. Arthur is painfully normal. He calls Merlin useless and throws things at his head and pretends not to notice Merlin sneaking bits of his breakfast.

And these moments are so, so hard because Merlin wants to be bitter. Wants to be sullen and withdrawn and throw his fears in Arthur’s face. But he can’t, can he? And underneath Arthur’s usual prattishness, there’s a fondness that makes Merlin ache. Why can’t he hate the man whose father killed thousands of people like him and who shows promise of continuing his father’s legacy? Why must he protect him? And why, oh, why did Arthur have to be unbearably decent, underneath it all?

It’s not fair, that he be burdened with this.

He didn’t ask for this. He didn’t ask to be a prince’s secret magic bodyguard. He didn’t ask for the threat of execution looming large overhead. All he wanted was for someone to teach him and give him a purpose, but now that he has a grand destiny he finds he doesn’t want it. He wants to go back to Ealdor, where life was hard but simple and repetitive, where there was Will, who knew and loved him anyway and who was half his world for all his life before his mother decided he wasn’t safe and sent him to Camelot. But, of course, even if he could go back, there wouldn’t be Will, because Will had died saving Arthur’s life. Another piece of him, stripped away and given to Arthur Pendragon for destiny’s sake.

And here’s one thing Arthur and their shared destiny he seems to bear all the responsibility for have given instead of taken from him, blood on his hands, so many dead at the hand of something he once thought beautiful. It’s hard to love something when you’ve seen it decapitate a man or burn someone to ashes. All the butterflies and pretty lights in the world won’t restore its beauty when you can still hear the squelch of a blade in someone’s body and agonized, heart wrenching screams as you burn someone where they stand.

He didn’t ask to become a killer. He just wanted to feel _safe_ and useful, not monstrous or unnatural; how did he end up here?

Purpose isn’t worth this, he thinks, and feels faintly sick.

But he has a responsibility, doesn’t he, to everyone like him, to little Mordred and to Freya and to every person Uther Pendragon has ever burned. He has to protect Arthur, so Arthur can bring about the golden age of magic, and no one will ever have to feel as afraid as he does everyday.

He clings to that hope like the lifeline it is.

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me [@ursus-mari](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/ursus-mari) on tumblr, if you are so inclined. Come chat about merlin!


End file.
